Cloud Passengers

In the last eight years, since I left India to seek my fortunes in the Land of Plenty, fortunes have changed, of both places. As adversity hit the western giant, propitious times fell in my homeland's lap. It feels almost as if Luck boarded an east-bound jet on that august, nay August day (it was a humble day actually) from the eastern shores of the United States, perhaps from New York city, almost exactly as I set foot on a a BA-owned Boeing 777 from Mumbai to Baltimore, though somehow Luck waiting at the winding immigration queue at the crowded JFK does strike me as incongruous. In the wee hours of the 19th, that fateful month, in 2003, as I turned back to look at my mother and fiance putting up a brave front, waving a goodbye through their surely misty eyes at my weak smile, Luck probably settled in her cushy VIP lounge sofa ordering hor d'oeuvres. While I clambered into my cramped seat, looking forward to the flight-food, dessert and the guilty delight of cheap thrillers and B-grade films, if only to drown my sinking feeling of putting many thousand miles between me and the life I knew, Luck smiled charmingly at the flight attendant as the champagne arrived. It was probably crisp, wealthy... perfect. Somewhere over the middle east I resolved to remain faithfully Indian, a guilt every Indian feels as they leave the warm folds of home. Many a household have I seen in the US, perturbed by adults who have stubbornly stood by their memory of that oath, forcing false loyalties from their children, citizens born of another mother. In my naivete, their failure was a lack of resolve, and I swore allegiance stronger than any before. But Luck as an intelligent being should, had none; she was leaving one place to inhabit another, bringing opportunities galore in her little Louis Vuitton clutch. It may have been Prada, I can't be sure. That she doesn't have any brand loyalty, I am certain. Somewhere over the white clouds of Europe (I think), afterI had finished my meal and my roller-coaster ride with hating and loving this decision to travel, I pondered, albeit briefly, with positivity at what my future held. After all I was going to the one of the best universities in the world, a beacon of excellence, a bastion of scientific progress, a paragon... you know the rest. I was one of the brightest, braving the skies to stake her claim to a place among the superlatives, to perhaps bring to fore, rare providence, that I was sure I had karmically earned through deservedness. I peered into that landscape of fluffiness outside my window. It looked like an upside down heaven, light from every direction, clouds of all hues of gold and pink. I couldn't put my finger on a time or place. Both kept slipping and changing, and the silver bird whose belly carried me to my future, kept reaching out trying to catch up with time. Time woud slip again from our buttery grip into the cloudy west and we , me and my bird chased in mirth, intoxicated. It was beautiful and I felt sure, for a brief minute. Everything would be fine.

That's when I remember it happened. In the cloudy horizon, half buried in the white fluffy waves, sailing like a grand luxury cruiser, majestic and almost slow, another plane floated by in the opposite direction. I watched it go delicately gliding over the cloudscape, noiselessly, with certainty. Just as we crossed, the sun poked from behind us, briefly reflecting off a window directly opposite me. A wink.

Well, 8 years later,I know who hood-winked me. I'll get you, Luck.